Zutara Week 2014
by Eternity In Seconds
Summary: A series of one-shots, revolving around Zutara. D1: Melancholy. D2: Jubilant. D3: Motorcycle. D4: Cobalt Blue. Day 5: Unrequited - Their first kiss would be their last. Day 6: Socks - He's thinking about how nice it is to sit in silence, without feeling like he's suffocating; how relaxing it is to just be with her. A Modern A/U, in which bending is illegal and Zuko is a vigilante.
1. Day 1: Melancholy

**Melancholy, A Zutara Week 2014 Story  
****Author:** Eternity in Seconds  
**Rating:** T  
**Genre:** Angst/Family  
**Words:** 1685  
**Pairings:** If you don't know, something may be wrong with you._  
_**Summary: **He had never had anything of his own. Not really. What he had broke, or abandoned him, or vanished. He hadn't been surprised when he hadn't been able to keep her, either.  
**Authors Note:** Welcome to the 2014 Zutara Week. This year, our prompts were picked by Zuko himself – Dante Bascoe! – and are definitely different to say the least. To start us all off on a good note, I decided to bring you something horrible! _**Day 1: Melancholy!**_  
**Disclaimer:** Bryke (Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko) and Nickelodeon own _Avatar: The Last Airbender_, and all that relates to it. I may own the story herein this FanFiction and I may own some of the Original Characters, but the original idea belongs to them.

* * *

**Playlist:  
** _ Moonlight Sonata: __Adagio Sostenuto_, Ludwig Van Beethoven

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melancholy: (noun) a gloomy state of mind, especially when habitual or prolonged; depression.  
sober thoughtfulness; pensiveness.

* * *

**Melancholy**

"Has it really been that long?"

A quiet whisper filled the air, and the young child blinked up at her older brother, her little fingers in her mouth as she smiled and shrugged. He knew that she didn't quite understand what had happened, or why her big sister and three big brother's cried lots when they came here, but she understood to be quiet and be a good girl.

"Has it really been that long since Mum passed away?"

The older boy smiled softly, taking his little sister's hand into his own. She grinned, a toothy grin, and bounced in place as another young girl came over to join them. She was a big sister, but she was a smaller bigger sister.

"Kya!" said the littlest girl, violet eyes wide and black hair messy. "Hold me!"

Kya grinned and ruffled her little sister's hair as she picked the four-year-old up into her arms.

_Had_ it really been so long?

He had never had anything of his own. Not really. What he had broke, or abandoned him, or vanished. He hadn't been surprised when he hadn't been able to keep her, either. He stood tall, hands clasped behind his back – whether to stop them from shaking or to stop himself from reaching out to her, he still doesn't know – and holds everything he wants to say inside, because he knows that his words aren't for the ears of children. Because, no matter how many times he has come here, to this Spirits forsaken place, he can't say anything. The words – though white hot, ice cold, molten lava, freezing rain – are caught in his throat, perched on the tip of his tongue, caged behind his teeth and lips.

_I_ and _love_ and _you_ and _I_ and _wish_ and _you_ and _could_ and _stay_ and _why_ and _left_ and _alone_ and _abandoned and love _and _me _and _why_ and _didn't_ and _you_.

They are a hurricane in his veins, pulsing and throbbing and raging and tearing to get out. But he can't. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he wanted, they stay locked away in his head and heart, away from prying eyes and bleeding hearts and listening ears.

But even now, years later, he was sitting beside his wife's grave, his hands clasped together and the cold, biting autumn air flowing through his black hair.

"Is Daddy sad?" he heard the little girl whisper, and it broke his heart even further, made the words constrict and choke his throat, and all he can think was _why?_

"Yeah, Nera, he is," the oldest boy, Zohar, said quietly, smiling and letting his eyes close as the wind blew hard.

It was a beautiful day out, and it somehow didn't seem fair that such a sad day— exactly four years since his wife had died, four years since his whole life had changed, four years since he lost again—could be so beautiful.

He felt the eyes of the Sun Sons, the elite black ops group he had been forced to create by his advisors when he had become Fire Lord, on him. He sighed. He could feel their Sparks – the fire inside every bending member of his nation – burning and flickering. It was a talent he had possessed ever since he had Bonded with Zen, his dragon.

He wondered what his enemies would think of him now. Would they see the powerful, illustrious, headstrong leader, ruler of the ancient country at war with itself, years later? Would they see the single, loyal, dedicated father and his five gifted bending children? Would they see the shattered, heart-broken man still trying to say goodbye even after four years? Would they see the coward or the hero? The brave or the innocent?

He closed his eye, blocked off his senses, and breathed.

He always wanted to remember her with a smile. To remember her hair, her eyes, her laugh... the way she lovingly held their first son, and the way she pouted when she told him she wanted a daughter, too.

He always wanted to remember her voice and how she would sing to Arka…

He wanted to remember how she would play dolls or teatime or Blue Spirit with Kya so gently and with such a beautiful, patient, loving smile… and the way she held Zhiya with no regret as she closed her eyes for the last time only minutes after their third son was born…

Cut off from his thoughts by a far away, "Is Daddy sad?" from his youngest daughter, he felt his smile slip.

Yeah, he was sad.

He was broken, damaged, scarred.

Agni, he was scarred.

The mark of his vengeful, prideful, bastard father decorated his face. The mark of his lost, deranged, childish sister decorated the skin above his heart. The marks of his hidden, hateful enemies littered his body – a jagged scar across his abdomen from a serrated knife, the brand of the Blue Hand on his lower back, the choppy hack of a sword repeated over his stomach and spine, the twisting lines of criss-crossed markings from a hundred enemies out for revenge and power and spite.

And then there were the other marks.

The ones across his heart and mind and soul; the ones only _They_ had been able to heal and create – his loved ones – his Beloved One.

Reaching a shaking hand out, he let his fingers trace the words on her gravestone.

**Katara**  
**Loving Wife, Mother and Friend.**  
**Master of Her Element**  
**Master of All Our Hearts**_  
_

In some ways, he blamed Hama and her apprentices for Katara's death. In ways, he blamed himself.

After Kya had been born, they'd promised no more children because giving birth twice had almost brought her to death. But then... then she had become pregnant with Arka, and they had gotten into a screaming match over whether or not to go through with the pregnancy. After their fight, when he found Katara crying by the fountain in his mother's old garden, he had regretted the things he had said.

He had never wanted to kill their baby, but he knew that, in the end, it would probably kill her.

And she knew it, too.

All throughout her pregnancy, she had grown weaker and weaker. But then Arka had been born healthy and he had hated himself more than he had ever hated himself before. Five years later, after a funeral he had hoped never to attend, they were expecting twins. It had been wonderful and terrifying, ecstasy and torture. The doctor had informed them that the reason her body was so weak was because of complications from her pregnancy with Zohar– their first, miracle child – or even before that...

When she had been tortured by Hama's apprentices as part of a sacrificial ceremony under the blood-red full moon.

The doctor had also said that, unless they induced labour at six months, she would die.

And during the extra three weeks that she had tried to hang on for her baby, they had prepared Arka, Zohar, and Kya for mummy's death. They had explained – together – that Mummy might not come back after Zuko brought the babies home.

And they had never seen her again after that.

Zhiya and Nera never met their mother.

"... Daddy?"

He was snapped out of his thoughts as Nera slowly shuffled over to him, her boot clad feet making tracks in the colourful leaves all over the ground. It was only then, when she reached up and wiped his tears away with her tiny, baby fingers that he realized he was crying again.

"Daddy?"

"Yeah, sweetheart?" he asked, pulling her into his arms as her bottom lip trembled and tears began to form in her little eyes.

"Don't be sad! I not sad! I strong, so Daddy be strong, too. I strong, see?" She pointed to her tear-filled eyes as she loudly proclaimed her strength. He couldn't help but smile a tiny bit as he hugged her tighter.

Arka and Zohar slowly walked over to their father and baby sister as he tugged Kya up alongside Nera. He let his molten eyes linger on Katara's grave just a little bit longer before turning to his children.

They all watched him, equal parts haunted and thankful.

"Thank you, Arka, for being so strong for your baby sisters. Thank you, Zohar, for holding Kya so tightly when she would cry. Thank you Zhiya… Nera… for being the happiness in the storm. You're all strong... stronger than I am. I know you all miss Mummy, but she's watching over us. She's always with us, now and forever. She'll never really leave us, because she loves you all too much."

They weren't The Words, but they were still words he needed to say. They slid over his tongue like honey, soft and supple and sweet, and he felt something ease of his soul, even as Zen purred her sympathy and support in the back of his mind and heart.

"I know, Daddy," Zohar said, wrapping his arms around his father. It was the first time his son had called him "daddy" in such a long time, as thirteen-year-olds never said daddy, especially thirteen year old princes with four baby siblings.

"I know she's with us, and she wants us to smile. So I'm going to smile every day, for as long as I can smile. What about you, ya big cry-baby?" he asked, gently patting nine-year-old Arka on the head.

"Me, too!" he said, reaching down to grasp Kya's hand as she hastily wiped tears from her purple eyes with her free hand. "And I'm not a cry-baby!"

Nera laughed, hiccupped, and laughed harder.

"Me three! Three me, me three, me me!"

Zuko smiled at his youngest child and let Zhiya grab his free hand. Kya was still holding tightly to her big brother, and as they walked away. The final words on Katara's gravestone shone in the glow of the sun as the leaves blew away.

**Never To Be Forgotten**  
**Forever Remembered**  
**Loved Above All Else**

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**A/N: **The prompt was **melancholy**... were you expecting happiness and butterflies and unicorns?

Some points:  
1. Yes, Katara is dead. She died a few hours after giving birth.  
2. Zuko has a dragon. Her name is Zen. They have a psychic connection (a la _Eragon_).  
3. Zuko and Katara had five children: Zohar (zah-HAR) 13, Kya 11, Arka (r-KAH) 9, and twins Zhiya (shy-YAH; male) and Nera (near-AH; female) 4. I see Zuko as being between 37 and 40.

Anyway, I hope that clears up any lingering questions. Please, leave a review and let me know what you think

See you tomorrow (ish) for **Day 2: Jubilant**. Which will be a much happier story.

- EIS


	2. Day 2: Jubilant

**Jubilant, A Zutara Week 2014 Story  
****Author:** Eternity in Seconds  
**Rating:** T  
**Genre:** Humour/Romance  
**Words:** 5703  
**Pairings:** If you don't know, something may be wrong with you._  
_**Summary: **The Midsummer's Ball was slowly becoming the most torturous, ridiculous, horrible, horrifying, nightmare-inducing night of his life. Between the Fangirls, prissy politicians, and Katara being Katara, he was going to have a mental breakdown.  
**Authors Note:** Welcome to the 2014 Zutara Week. This year, our prompts were picked by Zuko himself – Dante Bascoe! – and are definitely different to say the least. After the traumatic and tear-jerking beginning that was **Day 1: Melancholy**, I present a much happier, hopeful, brighter story – **Day 2: Jubilant. **Quick, fluffy piece! Never actually done something like this before. Should be interesting! Please enjoy.  
**Disclaimer:** Bryke (Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko) and Nickelodeon own _Avatar: The Last Airbender_, and all that relates to it. I may own the story herein this FanFiction and I may own some of the Original Characters, but the original idea belongs to them.

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**Playlist:  
** _ Do I Wanna Know, _Arctic Monkeys  
_ Can't Remember To Forget You_, Shakira featuring Rihanna

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jubilant: (adjective) showing great joy, satisfaction, or triumph; rejoicing; exultant

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**Jubilant,  
or: The Most Torturous, Ridiculous, Horrible, Horrifying, Nightmare-Inducing Night Of His Life****  
**

**xXx**

Zuko was very normal by all means. Meaning he could understand the difference between a good looking girl and a girl that was just average. For example, he knew that Suki was an average girl. He also knew for a fact that Katara was _not _average. He understood this very well, and was wise enough to know that Katara was clearly off-limits.

Why was she off-limits, some may ask? Well that was simple. Aang had his eyes on Katara. The two were practically destined to be together. They were together. Had been since the day of Zuko's coronation. Zuko knew this very well – Aang always seemed to make of point of sticking his tongue down Katara's throat whenever Zuko was around or within the same country – and didn't dare try to tangle the fragile strings of fate. He would never…

Nope.

Never.

* * *

Zuko couldn't decide what he hated more: the fact that he was alone or the fact that all these girls were trying to make him _not-so-alone_. He just didn't understand why they fainted and squealed and did generally annoying things when they were obviously trying to attract his attention in a good way; not a bad way. Which was the exact thing they were doing.

Attracting his attention for all the wrong reasons, that is.

Zuko had _standards_.

1. She had to be smart.

(Which was a given, considering that he was the youngest Fire Lord in over five hundred years or something. Plus, Zuko took pride in education. It was why he had reformed his countries education system so that everyone could get the same level of education from the age of five until they turned thirteen. Then it was up to them.)

2. She had to be brave.

(Which was another given. He was the youngest Fire Lord in over five hundred years, his country was always on the edge of all out civil war, and people loved trying to kill him. Lots of people. Like, lots. No lie. Someone was trying to assassinate him every other Tuesday. "They" all seemed to choose Tuesday because "They" thought he wouldn't be prepared for it. It was Tuesday, after all.)

3. She had to be a bender.

(This was not another given for him. It was, however, a given for his country, his people and his Advisors – his advisors being Uncle, Master Jeong Jeong, Piando, Commander Jee and Toph. He was pretty sure that Toph wanted him to marry a bender because she wanted another sparring partner.)

4. She had to be highborn.

(Again, this was not another given for him. It was, however, a given for his country, his people and his Advisors – his advisors being Uncle, Master Jeong Jeong, Piando, Commander Jee and Toph. He knew and understood why, but he didn't have to like it. But, his people came first, and they needed a Fire Lady who knew how to act and what to do. He was pretty sure highborn extended to all the ruling parties of each of the four nations. This included all thirty-eight Earth Nation princesses. And Chief daughters…)

5. She had to be funny

(This was imperative. He didn't need another glutton from gloom, like Mai, hanging around and making him feel like shit. Like he was worthless.)

6. She had to be warm

(Imperative. Warm didn't refer to the naturally higher temperatures fire benders ran. It did, however, refer to people how could express emotion. He wanted to avoid Mai and all her type.)

7. She had to have heart

(His people – and he himself – needed someone who could genuinely care about them – and him. They needed kindness and happiness, light and joy. They needed someone who would cry when disaster and sorrow struck, but who could carry on. They needed someone who could sympathise with them. They needed someone who had morals, who knew right from wrong, and when it was necessary to blur the lines between the two.)

8. She had to want a family.

(Ah, hello? Youngest Fire Lord in history? Only heir that wasn't crazy? He needed his own heirs – he wanted his own family, his own children. He wanted people he could lavish with attention, who could love him and stay by his side. He needed and wanted a wife who wanted that too.)

9. She had to be pretty – or, at least, not completely horrifying and terrifying to look at.

(He was a human being. Cut him some slack. Aesthetics were somewhat important, no matter what anyone said)

It was just unfortunate that all these standards were met by one particular living person.

**xXx**

The Midsummer's Ball was slowly becoming the most torturous, ridiculous, horrible, horrifying, nightmare-inducing night of his life. Which was no small feat, considering the most torturous, ridiculous, horrible, horrifying, nightmare-inducing night of his life had been seven years ago, when Sokka had taken him out to hit all the clubs in Ba Sing Se and then gotten drunk off an unnameable pink liquid and started acting like he was high off cactus juice. Zuko had lost Sokka in the Lower Ring and spent the whole night searching every alley and gutter for the body. He had found Sokka in one of the brothels, completely undressed and in a pile of his own _something._

Zuko had been nineteen. Sokka had been eighteen.

So the fact that the Midsummer's Ball was even climbing the list meant that Zuko wanted to hide in Ozai's cell until it was all over. His father would be much better company compared to the twittering, insufferable, airheaded females that were surrounding him like cockroach-leeches. At least Ozai could carry a conversation without giggling like a demonic hyena.

In all honesty, he would even talk to Mai.

And she was the one who had cheated on him with Jet. In his own palace. In his own room. On his own floor. Possibly on his bed (which is why he had had to burn it).

That was the fifteenth most torturous, ridiculous, horrible, horrifying, nightmare-inducing night of his life. Heavy on the nightmare. And the horror. He never wanted to see that much of Jet ever again. Ever. He had nearly made a law about it, but it would have caused too many awkward questions.

"Will you let me have your babies?"

However, if he had to find a positive in his situation, it would be that the Fangirls were very entertaining.

"No sex before marriage."

He loved to turn them down in creative, polite ways.

"Will you marry me?"

"Shouldn't we have a relationship first?"

"Will you go out with me?"

"Sorry, but no."

He gestured to a set of guards drifting around the outer edge of the room and they removed the girl before she could cause too big of a scene. She was caught in a strange limbo place that he had a garnered a reputation of inducing. Somewhere between hysterical happiness and hysterical aggressiveness. It was called the Zuko State. Literally.

From behind him, he heard a familiar snort. "Toph."

Toph was grinning like a banshee. All teeth and evil-glinting in her milky green eyes. She had grown up from the messy, uncouth, dirt-clad girl he had adopted and become the mature, dirt-clad woman he knew today. She was still short. But she had breasts as big as coconuts and curves in what he knew were all the right places. Unfortunately, recognising these attributes nearly always made him sick.

Toph was his daughter-slash-sister.

End of story.

Especially if anyone tried to hit on her like his Fangirl's were doing with him.

Then it would definitely be End of Story. For them.

Toph opened her mouth to greet him when a particularly aggressive FanGirl appeared. Lady Kyoko just didn't understand the word no.

"Can I have some directions?" she asked, shifting around on her feet and placing a hand on her popped hip. Zuko cocked an eyebrow, despite knowing that she couldn't see it. She was wearing a very figure hugging green robe, edged in an intricate pattern of suns and stars. Around her wrist glinted a coiled whip, disguised to look like a dragon-headed armband. It twined over her forearms, curving around her slim but powerful biceps until it ended juts around across from her armpit .

"Sure. Just go down the hall and it's the first door on your left."

"But... what? You were supposed to say 'to what'?"

"Really? I thought you were asking me where to find the bathroom

"Nooo…" Why did they always have to sound so nasal? "I wanted to know the directions to your heart! Or even better, your bed..."

Zuko could only blink. "I'm sorry. That information is on a need-to-know basis."

She winked. "Really?"

"Certainly," he said, smiling crookedly in a way he knew melted hearts and caused other things to melt (if you caught his drift). "As in – if I need you, you'll know. Or better yet, you don't need to know." He smiled brightly, making sure to flash his scar. "I hope you enjoy you're evening." With that, he offered Toph and arm and they walked in the opposite direction to Kyoko.

Toph was cackling madly. "Oh my Spirits! That was fantastic! The best one yet! She was all… then you were all… then she was…" Toph was gasping for breath, wiping a tear out of her eye. "This is why I prefer you to Aang. And Sokka."

Zuko cocked an eyebrow again. "You only prefer me to Sokka because you guys broke up." Zuko paused, spinning her around agilely in time with the music. "Again." He saw something in Toph's face change, sliding from

"Why did you break up with Sokka, Toph?"

"Oh, you know," Toph said disinterestedly, spinning gracefully with perfect Court posture. Zuko noticed a few stares that seemed way too heated from some of the braver – and stupider – male patrons of the Ball and made a mental note to pay them a visit later. "The usual thing. Nothing to worry about, really."

"Oh, really?" Zuko drawled sarcastically, noticing Sokka off in the distance talking to the Chief of the Northern Water Tribe and King Kuei. He was all enthusiastic gestures and random finger-pointing, but his eyes looked flat and dim. As Zuko watched, he saw the Water Tribe man's eyes flicker to Toph.

Toph looked away, pale cheeks darkening, and Zuko squeezed her shoulder.

"Toph. If he hurt you, I need –"

"He didn't hurt me, Zuko," she said, her voice softer than normal.

"Then what is it?" he asked, trying to keep his Party Face on despite the angry cocktail of emotions churning just below the surface. "Because he keeps looking at you, and you seem adamant to avoid looking at him, and usually when the two of you have one of your legendary 'breaks' you're still friends."

"I think I'm pregnant," she whispered, and Zuko heard the thick quality in her tone that indicated tears. "I'm pregnant, Zuko, and I'm terrified like I've never been before."

"So, you need to tell him."

Toph's head snapped up, her milky eyes wide and her mouth open in a cute but disgusting 'o' of surprise. Her lips trembled, and her grip on Zuko's shoulder and hand as they continued dancing tightened considerably.

"_What_?" she hissed in disbelief. Zuko had seemed to have thrown her for a loop, and that made him wonder just how she had expected

"Well, if Sokka is the father, he –"

"_If?"_ Toph snarled, and Zuko watched her whip shiver around her arm as the metal responded to Toph's strong emotions. Zuko gulped. "What the hell is that supposed to mean, Zuko?"

"I –

"I am not and I never have cheated on Sokka or been with anyone else! How can you even think that?!"

"Honestly, the fact that you've been avoiding him so carefully doesn't help your case."

"Are you serious?"

"Tell him then," Zuko whispered in his commanding Fire Lord voice. He only really used it in meetings with his Court and war council. It was coolly detached and innocuously soft, but dangerously edged in promise and vengeance. "If Sokka is the father, than he has every right to know about his child. You know that he's always wanted a family – are you seriously considering hiding his chance and taking it away from him?"

"It isn't about him."

"Then what?"

"What if I'm not a good mother?" she whispered, so weakly he almost didn't hear. "What if I'm like my mother?"

"Being a mother is an attitude, Toph, not a biological relation," Zuko said as softly as he could manage, rubbing a small and comforting circle of Toph's silk-clad hip. His Mother had done the same thing for him whenever he had been upset, but couldn't do or say anything. It was usually during one of Ozai's particularly cruel and sadistic temper-tantrums. His Mother would come over and just barely brush a finger or rub a circle on whatever piece of Zuko she could reach. It was always enough though. It told him that she was there and that it was going to be okay in the end. He hoped Toph was getting the message.

She laughed bitterly. "That really doesn't help."

Zuko shook his head. "Do you think I'll be Ozai?"

Toph's head snapped up. "What? No! Zuko, why the hell would you say something like that?" There was fire in her eyes again, conviction and meaning. "You are nothing like him. He was a monster," she snarled defensively.

Zuko smirked. "Then why do you think you'll be your mother?"

She was silent.

Zuko didn't bother to hide his smile this time. "We are not our parents, Toph. We are our own people." The dance came to an end, and he and his little earth-bending daughter bowed to each other. As he led her off the dance floor, Zuko continued, "You are one of the strongest, bravest and most loving people I know. The way you protect me and Aang and Katara and Duke and Teo and all who you care about… that dedication, that unfaltering loyalty – that's what being a parent is all about. It's about giving your baby the best and about being them for them, whether it is to pick them up when they fall or to cheer them on as they rise up." He kissed her temple and gently pushed her in Sokka's direction. "Being a mother is just another act of courage. And you're brave, aren't you Toph?"

Toph watched him – or, at least, gazed at a place near his collar bone steadily – before biting he rlip and squaring her shoulders. Without another word, she marched over to Sokka – who, Zuko knew, had been watching she and him since the dance ended. Zuko took a wine-glass off a tray as it came by and sipped at it, watching his two friends as casually as he could, without looking like he was watching them.

He saw Toph interrupt and ask for Sokka.

He saw the trepidation and obvious adoration in Sokka's eyes as he followed her to a quite pillar of marble.

He saw her hands shake as Sokka asked something quietly.

He saw the moment when she made her decision.

And everyone saw and heard Sokka's reaction.

"I LOVE YOU, TOPH BEI FONG!" he crowed, wrapping tanned arms around her waist – she was two-thirds his height – and lifting her up into the air. Toph screeched as he spun her around wildly, her bare feet kicking hysterically in the air. "YOU ARE THE MOST WONDERFUL, BEAUTIFUL, POWERFUL CREATURE IN ALL EXISTENCE!"

Toph thumped him on the head and said something (Zuko imagined lots of colourful language and bodily promises of the threatening kind). Sokka put her down quickly, practically dropping her, and slid his tongue down her throat.

Zuko threw up a little in his mouth and looked away quickly.

The patrons of the Ball – used to strange events that were usually associated with Midsummer – didn't pay Sokka and Toph anymore attention, returning to their parties and drinking without delay. Midsummer played havoc with a firebenders emotions, driving them to do stupid, crazy and dangerous things. It was something about the time of year – the most children were born nine months after Midsummer's Eve – that sent people to the loony bin.

Midsummer Madness was not just a saying in the Fire Nation. It was a disease, like the flu or dragon-pox.

"You never fail to amaze me, Fire Lord Zuko."

Zuko hadn't heard that voice in years. It was the same as he remembered – a quietly babbling stream in the middle of spring, all coolness and peace and gentleness.

_No, no, no. Do not go down that path, Zuko._

Her tone of voice came in as many forms as there was water. It could be as volatile and unforgiving as a summer rain storm, as vicious and cruel as a roaring tide, as comforting and forgiving as a curtain of rain in the middle of winter. He had always wondered what it would sound like when she screamed, not in fear, but in…

_ABORT MISSION! ABORT MISSION! DO NOT MOVE ON! DO NOT MOVE PASS GO! ZUKO, ABANDON SHIP!_

"Master Katara," Zuko choked out, feeling uncomfortable and ashamed and embarrassed and turned on all at once. His head was a muddle of contradictory feelings, and his body wasn't helping in any way. "I don't know why I deserve such praise."

Katara's eyes narrowed. "You don't have to be so formal, Zuko," she said. When she didn't get the response she had obviously been waiting for, she sighed. She jerked her head in her brother's direction. "He's been sulky and pouty for three months straight; moaning about Toph, talking about Toph, waxing eloquently about Toph, writing terrible poetry about Toph and reciting it to me." Zuko had to fight back his smile as Katara shivered. "I love Toph. Really. But there is only so much a girl can handle before she freezes his lips together."

"You froze his lips together?"

"And froze some other things, too."

_Do not smile. Do not smile . Do not smile. Do not smile. Do not smile. Do not smile. Do not smile_…

He smiled.

_You are an embarrassment to our gender_, the little Light Spirit on his shoulder groaned. _Have some restraint, man! Be ashamed of yourself! She is off-limits. Do I need to spell it out to you? O-F-F—L-I-M-I-T-S_.

"You didn't answer my question."

Katara rolled her eyes playfully. "You got Toph to get back with Sokka."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

"No, seriously, I really had nothing to do with it," Zuko stressed.

Katara opened her mouth to respond when Sokka practically barreled Katara down, dragging Toph behind with him. Toph's cheeks were bright red, like fresh blood had been smeared across her face. Almost like she could feel Zuko's amusement at the whole situation, she narrowed her eyes into her patented glare and curled her fingers threateningly as her whip shivered.

"Sokka!" While Zuko and Toph had been having their moment, Katara and Sokka had been bickering.

"Zuko!" his friend all but shrieked, startling the attention of everyone within a hundred foot radius. Zuko narrowed his eyes. Yes, he and Sokka were buddies (Toph said they had a Bromance that rivalled ever the most legendary of bromance's) but Zuko was still Fire Lord.

Did it kill Sokka to remember that?

Especially at Zuko's party?

"Yes, Councilman Sokka?" Zuko said politely, using the title Sokka had earned when he had moved to Republic City after resigning as Chief of the Southern Water Tribe last year.

"I need you healer!"

Katara finally stopped trying to burn a hole in the back of Sokka's head, and her face moved from annoyed and angry to panicked and then circled to concern for good measure. "Sokka? What is it? What's wrong? Are you sick?"

Zuko decided ignoring Katara was the best bet (like he hadn't been doing that for the past ten years or anything. [and despite that, he still found it nearly impossible to ignore her rain and bright scent, and the way her hair curled at the ends like wisps of silky smooth white clouds… {ten years of practice had done jack}] _You are so far in the deep end that you can't remember if up is down or down is up_, his Inner Voice whispered, sounding so suspiciously like freaking Katara it was making him question his own sanity)."We don't have healers here."

"Fine! Your physician!"

"Wrong."

"Doctor! I need the doctor right this very second! It's a life or death situation! The utmost importance! National security may be at risk!"

Zuko arched an eyebrow. "Are you threatening violence towards my country, Sokka?"

Sokka actually came down from his hysterics. "What?!"

"That's usually when a problem becomes a concern of national security. When there has been an act of war made against my country and her people."

Sokka blustered, spluttering for a ridiculous amount of time while Toph bounced on her toes impatiently. She was palming the handle of her whip almost thoughtfully. He wondered if Sokka had noticed.

"We need a doctor right NOW!"

Obviously not.

"Sokka," Toph finally snapped, gritting her teeth. "I've told you. I'm fine."

"Wait, Toph's sick?" Zuko faintly heard Katara say.

"Yes!" Sokka shouted while Zuko said, "No," flatly.

"If she's sick, why didn't you ask me to help?" Katara asked, already stepping forward and uncorking the flask she always wore around her slim waist. Her hands started to glow faintly as she slid towards Toph.

Sokka's response was instantaneous. He screamed, in pitch Zuko often heard his Fangirls use, grabbed his boomerang and slapped Katara's hands. The water fell to the ground in her shook.

"No! NO WAY! Back, witch! Stay back! Keep your magicky bending to yourself, woman!"

Zuko face-palmed. Toph slapped Sokka.

"What is going on here?" Katara demanded, swinging to implore Zuko with her all-consuming cerulean eyes.

"Excuse me, sir?" Zuko turned to his head of staff, Rioko, as he bowed in the traditional way. Zuko gave a short nod which told the other man to go on. Rioko straightened. "I heard that Lady Toph was in need of our doctor? I summoned Doctor Yashu. He is waiting in the Swallow Hall."

**xXx**

"So Toph's pregnant with my little niece or nephew?" Katara said softly, a delicate smile on her face.

Zuko waited before opening his mouth, long enough for the servant—where did they come from, seriously, he was the Blue Spirit for Agni's sake. He should have heard them coming a mile away! —to appear with a tray that steamed and smelled delicious to Zuko's nose, a small, gentle smile on their face.

Katara stood, eagerly approaching them with bright eyes. Kagome, the servant, could only shake her head and bow. Her heard Katara sigh and flop down on the chaise that sat in the receiving room that waited just beyond the doors of the Swallow Hall, where Sokka and Toph got the diagnosis from the doctor. Zuko clasped his hands behind his back and said something to the servant who appeared, incredibly and for no reason, when he gave the call and asked for information as soon as the doctor was done with Lady Toph.

Katara didn't seem to know what to say, so she simply curled up on the lounge and closed her eyes, breathing, "Sit with me," at him enticingly.

Zuko gulped. Considering his options briefly, he slid on to the seat beside her, making sure to leave enough room for a baby platypus-bear to sit between them. Katara noticed, one of her eyes open in a small slit. They sat in tense silence, Katara closing her eyes and breathing softly while Zuko internally panicked himself to an early grave.

Spirits, he hadn't been this close to her – this alone with her – since Sozin's Comet.

"I don't understand. What is it?" she asked when the silence become far too smothering and heavy. Her voice made him jump, which only seemed to bother her more.

"I don't understand?" She bit her lip, watching him through lidded eyes, and Zuko had to look away.

"Whatever happened to _us_, Zuko?"

_I happened_, Zuko thought, but didn't say. _I happened to us, Katara, because I wanted there to be an Us. But at the same time, I knew that it was an impossible dream, and no matter how hard I tried to move on, I couldn't forget you._

He managed a sharp shrug. "We grew apart?"

Wow. That was so… not convincing.

"Can't we be friends again?"

"It doesn't work that way." Zuko's voice was gentle, or at least gentle compared to the brutal way he spoke to every other woman in his life (besides Toph, because if he took **the tone **he used against his Fangirls with Toph, she would hurt him. A lot. Slowly.).

"But why?" she demanded, not leaving it be like he desperately needed her too.

"Master Kat…"

"There!" she spat, sitting up and moving to her knees. She was completely facing him now, balanced perfectly on the chaise. "That! That isn't growing apart, Zuko, that's deliberately putting a wall up between us!" Her eyes seemed to shimmer in the light and Zuko realized with a lurch that she was holding back tears.

_Way to go, dude. You made the Love of Your Life cry. Over you. You deserve the trophy for biggest dickhead in the Four Nations_.

"What happened? Is it something I did? Something I said?"

"No! No, no, no, no, no. Don't blame yourself Katara, you haven't done anything. Nothing at all."

"Then why?" she whispered. "Why can't we be friends again?"

"Because it will never work, not as long as we're both alive."

She recoiled visibly, like a startled desert cobra-huntsman. Zuko considered drowning himself in the fountain. _Now wouldn't that be poetic?_

Katara was silent longer than Zuko had expected after that admission.

"Aang asked me to marry him."

"Look, Katara, I can't explain why, but just know that I – wait, _what?"_

She shrugged, nibbling on her lip again, and all Zuko could think about was biting it for her as he kissed her. And biting other things and places. "He asked me at my birthday party – the one you didn't _attend_ – in front of everyone. It was all very romantic."

"I couldn't attend because someone tried to kill me. Again. And the Court decided that the forty-fifth time that month was enough to be a little worried. They grounded me. I told Sok –"

She sighed heavily, and cut him off with a raised hand. "I know Zuko. Toph told me about all the attacks. You were still missed, though," she said patiently, turning away and finding something fascinating in the tapestry blowing easily in the summer breeze. "Spirits, did I miss you."

Zuko was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to hear that last part, so he ignored its existence.

"And?" he hedged, torn between wanting – no, needing – to know and wanting to run away and pretend like this whole conversation and his whole messy emotional hurricane of feelings didn't exist, and that she was juts _Katara_ again and he was just _Zuko_.

Then again, Zuko had always been half in love with Katara, so that didn't help much of anything.

"How long?" his voice sounded hoarse, even to him.

She gave him a puzzled look. "How long what?"

He looped his arms around Katara's waist, abandoning his question, and sighed into her ear. "I wish you would go," he whispered.

She dizzy from the change of conversation. "I won't," Katara said, and Zuko turned his head fractionally to see her blue eyes wide open. "Not permanently. I could give you some space, but that would only postpone the inevitable." She paused, then added, with the first touch of real uncertainty Zuko had seen from her since she was watching him die, "You do know what the inevitable means?"

Suddenly, he did. Zuko shoot up off the chaise they had both been sitting in so fast he saw Katara blink with dizziness. The servant who had been making his way down the hall recoiled, crying out in surprise and fear, and Zuko realised his temper had made the candles flare up dangerously high. He took control of himself and turned to the servant, an apology on the tip of his tongue, and found himself taken aback by the fear in the young man's eyes.

"Don't cower like that," Katara snapped from behind him. Zuko half turned and saw her enraged face out of the corner of his eye. "Your Fire Lord is a good, kind man – he would never hurt you. It's despicable to see you grovel like he would. Leave us," Katara's voice – sharp and biting like a blizzard in the dead of winter – snapped. The man scurried away quickly, bowing hastily and muttering forgiveness at _Master Katara_.

Zuko turned to her with an arched eyebrow. Her cheeks were enflamed, her dark skin flushed far too temptingly. She would be the death of him, he was sure.

"I hate them," was all she said, somewhat spitefully.

"I beg your pardon."

She gazed at him, a storm brewing in her eyes. "I hate the way they fear you. You've never done a thing to them – you've only ever helped them – but all they can see is the monster your father was and the broken girl he made Azula."

"That's the way things have been since I became Fire Lord," he shrugged. "That's why I've started the negotiations for a bride. Uncle, Jee, Jeong Jeong – they all think that my people need to see me married, to see the softer side of me." He laughed bitterly. She opened her mouth to say more, but he silenced her with a finger against the lips. "You're so vital," he said softly, feeling the electric pull that was her. "So alive. So strange to think that you were prepared to die when you agreed to face Azula and my father. I think you would have survived even if I hadn't taken the lightning for you."

Katara shook her head, not opening her eyes. "I wouldn't have. Your sister… she was too powerful, not unhinged. Her blood was filled with Sozin's Comet, the fire was in her veins. If I hadn't gotten in your way, you would have beaten her. You were beating her. Then she saw me, and…"

"I'm sorry," he said honestly, hoarsely, and it was like a weight fell off his shoulders.

She gave him a puzzled look. "Why?"

"It was my fault she attacked you."

Katara rolled her eyes. "Don't even start the Blame Game, mister."

Silence descended again, Zuko pointedly **Not Looking** at Katara while she played with the hem on her tunic.

"You never answered my question, Zuko."

He sighed, turning away and staring out, through the marble columns to the courtyard where the rest of the world danced without a care in the world. "How long until your wedding?"

"Never."

Zuko forgot how to breath.

"Zuko." He felt her, could sense every hair on her head where she stood behind him, approaching him in the way a tamer approaches a wounded animal. "I said no."

"Why?" Do not get your hopes up, Zuko, don't do this too yourself! But he couldn't stop the feeling as it poled in his stomach and clawed its way up to his chest.

"I'm in love with someone else."

Katara's fingers were gentle on his temple, running around and through his curls of hair as she pushed it away and off his scar, descending to snag and tug, circling his ears. Zuko tensed, thinking Katara would move away, flinch like everyone else did when they came in contact with his scarred flesh, again, but Katara only went on touching, caressing.

"Will you look at me, Zuko?"

If I do, what will I see? He thought. He couldn't handle it if he lost her again.

"You'll never know unless you look at me, Zuko."

Guess he said that out loud.

Zuko turned, and saw everything, and _Agni_ –– "I'm in love with you, Zuko," she breathed, "And you've been in love with me for a long time, haven't you?" _She always had known his mind…_ ––he saw everything.

He reached out, touched her cheek, because she was _there_, and there was love like nothing he had ever seen – pure, unaltered, innocent, strong, passionate, consuming love– across her face and in her eyes and smile.

Katara plucked Zuko's hand off her cheek and turned it to give him a kiss on the palm. Zuko was almost shaking from the force of his emotions, and then their eyes met and he was moving without thought, kissing Katara full on the lips and pouring his heart out, surrendering it over to her hands completely...

And she was doing the same, and returning his love tenfold, and nurturing and clasping his heart like it was the most precious thing she had ever held in her life.

This felt bloody _fantastic. _Kind of like gliding around a dance floor in the arms of someone he knew wouldn't taunt him. Or step on him.

Katara threw her arms around Zuko's neck and kissed back as hard as she could, almost hard enough to push Zuko back against the marble column behind him. Their kiss this time was, Zuko thought, both dramatic and heartfelt, softening the moment Katara's mouth opened to let him in.

Zuko eagerly entered her mouth, bending down to kiss her properly (when had Katara been this short?), and Katara eagerly reached up and tightened her looped arms around Zuko's neck. Zuko nipped carelessly at her lips before drawing back again and smiling at her, pressing their foreheads together so their noses brushed.

They were still standing there, foreheads pressed together as she giggled gaily while he pressed peckish kisses all over her face, when Sokka announced his twins. And in that moment, Katara in his arms and Toph and Sokka so disgustingly happy that it was nauseating, Zuko was jubilant.

* * *

**A/N: **Jubilant! Not so short, but I hope you loved it all the same! Note, FanFiction is being a PMSing bitch who only lets me update and add chapters when _she feels like it_. It won't let me upload Day 3 (or Day 4) so bare with me, people!

Some points:

1. Zuko is 26-ish and Katara is 23-and-a-half-ish. This takes place roughly ten years after the finale of A:TLA

2. Toph and Sokka. Nuff said.

3. Did you like the kiss?

4. Toph's whip looks like Isabelle's in the **Mortal Instruments** movie (which I was very disappointed in, but the whip can still be admired). Just Google _Isabelle's whip_

Anyway, I hope that clears up any lingering questions. Please, leave a review and let me know what you think

See you tomorrow (ish) for **Day 3: Motorcycle**. Which WILL BE ALTERNTE HUMAN UNIVERSE (possibley. probably. half and half. you'll see). I hope FanFiction works itself out.

- EIS


	3. Accidently Deleted, Rewriting, Skip

**Motorcycle, A Zutara Week 2014 Story  
****Author:** Eternity in Seconds  
**Rating:** T  
**Genre:**  
**Words:**  
**Pairings:** If you don't know, something may be wrong with you._  
_**Summary: TO COME! I accidently deleted the original, so I've been forced to rewrite. Sorry about the delay**  
**Authors Note:** This IS an ALTERNATE UNIVERSE. If that's not your forte, give it a try anyway. I've been told that I write a spectacular A/U.  
**Disclaimer:** Bryke (Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko) and Nickelodeon own _Avatar: The Last Airbender_, and all that relates to it. I may own the story herein this FanFiction and I may own some of the Original Characters, but the original idea belongs to them.

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**Playlist:  
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motorcycle: (noun) a motor vehicle similar to a bicycle but usually larger and heavier, chiefly for one rider but sometimes having two saddles or an attached sidecar for passengers.

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**Motorcycle**


	4. Day 4: Cobalt Blue

**Cobalt Blue, A Zutara Week 2014 Story  
****Author:** Eternity in Seconds  
**Rating:** T  
**Genre:** Romance  
**Words:** 5298  
**Pairings:** If you don't know, something may be wrong with you._  
_**Summary: **Zuko's favourite colour has always been blue. Cobalt blue. He just didn't know why until he met her for the first time (again). In a different time, when the Avatar never went missing, a boy and a girl share a series of moments that lead to memorable beginnings (and endings).  
**Authors Note:**  
**Disclaimer:** Bryke (Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko) and Nickelodeon own _Avatar: The Last Airbender_, and all that relates to it. I may own the story herein this FanFiction and I may own some of the Original Characters, but the original idea belongs to them.

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**Playlist:  
** _Pray_, Kodaline

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cobalt blue: (noun) a deep blue to a strong greenish-blue colour.

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**Cobalt Blue**

_**(Turtleducks)**_

It's that moment beside the Turtle Duck pond, in the middle of the hottest summer's day in a hundred years. The light bounces of the reflective, fluid mirror of the water, only disturbed when a jasmine blossom falls from the branches above and spirals, floats, dances down to settle on the calm and tranquil water, sending ripples in every which direction.

It's when he closes his eyes and thinks that even the gentlest, most innocent, innocuous moment can change everything. Can send ripples through a person's life like the jasmine blossom landing on top of the water.

It's that moment when he hears the high pitched giggle from above him, and he opens one eye lazily and shouts at the top of his lungs when he comes face to face with a dark skinned, blue eyed kid as she hangs above him. She startles, screaming and tries to scurry backwards, and at the last second remembering that she is, in fact, on a branch above water.

She falls in slow motion, her arms wildly spinning windmills on either side of her as she tumbles and tries to retain some sort of balance. He watches, open-mouthed, as she crashes into the peaceful water of the pond. Her crash sends a tidal wave of water in every which direction and he yelps and scrambles backwards, avoiding the spray.

It startles the lazily drifting turtle ducks, sending them frightened and upward into the air, soft feathers falling to the ground around him like snow in the winter.

He sits beside the lapping bank of the pond, on his knees with a hand raised in front of him just like his Masters taught him too, and watched her warily. A lilypad is on her head, sitting above the damp, curling brown hair like one of his mother's strange flat hats. A part of the greenery flaps over her eyes.

They stare at each other like two animals sizing each other up.

She's younger than he is, probably only about three, and he can't believe that he let a three year old sneak up on him.

His mother says he is a big boy, now that he is almost six, and that he always has to be on guard to protect his sister. She usually tickles him straight after that.

But this is different.

Her eyes are as wide as the pond she fell in, and they are a colour he has never seen before. A shade of blue that's both beautiful and enthralling. Her hair was long and matted by pond-sludge, but it curled softly around her head like a crown of twisted ivy. Her skin was dark, and he knew immediately that she must be here with the Water Tribe visitors his mother had told him to be nice to.

He turned his head away from the little girl as he noticed his mother coming down the foot path after meeting with his father for something that only the adults could know about. Roza, his nanny, walked beside her and was swinging a thatched picnic basket lazily at her side. He turned back around, but the girl was gone.

Neither would remember this day, but it was the beginning of something neither would have expected.

**xXx**

**__****(Training)**

He is frustrated.

Because no matter how much he _breathes _or _flows _or _pushes, _his fire kicks just aren't good enough.

Lu Ten, who's in charge of his lesson today, is smiling down at him with encouragement, stopping occasionally to correct his stance.

He tries his kick again.

His flame isn't powerful enough because his kick isn't wide enough, so it splutters and burns out like a lantern at sea.

It's not _perfect _enough.

Lu Ten caught onto his frustration (again), and knelt down in front of him. Lu Ten is nine years older than he is and his favourite person in the world. Lu Ten is eighteen and has just joined the army. He is almost a Master bender, and almost old enough to drink the fire whiskey Uncle Iroh – Lu Ten's father and his Uncle – and his mother love. He can't wait until he turns eighteen, because he can finally leave the palace.

"Do you know how old I was when I finally perfected that move?"

He shakes his head and crosses his arms, not really in the mood to be comforted. He would rather frown and sulk and read his Blue Spirit scrolls.

The Blue Spirit wasn't a firebender, but if he was he would bet that his kicks would have been flawless. Lu Ten agrees with him, and calls the Blue Spirit _badass_. He really likes that word.

Lu Ten clears his throat and he hesitantly pulls his head up to look at his older cousin.

"I was _eleven_. Two years older than you are now."

He shrugs, feeling a little bit (okay, a lot) better, but not willing to show it.

"You're so much further ahead with your bending than I was when I was nine. You should be proud."

Something moves in the shadows of the training area and he looks up to see a dark face, hidden behind the fronds of one of the huge tropical trees that grew really well in the Fire Nation climate, but nowhere else in the world.

The face is vaguely familiar – like one he saw in a dream, or a long forgotten memory that isn't as forgotten as he had thought – and he is consumed by a burning curiosity that pushes him to take chase.

He heard Lu Ten calling his name behind him, but he can't stop.

"Hey you!" he shouts, raising an arm that does and reached for the shadow, despite the fact that he won't ever be able to reach. "Come back here!"

He takes off after the Shadow, making sure to completely ignore Lu Ten's voice as he shouts out after him. He doesn't know why he is chasing after a shadow that could just be a lost servant trying to keep a position at his parents' court. All he understands is the shock that rushed through his body when he saw them peering at him with surprisingly blue eyes.

It is a blue he has never seen before, except in his Uncle's colour palates. His Uncle is trying to open his own little business, but the War in the Earth Kingdom against a group of rebels has called him away to Ba Sing Se. The Fire Nation alliance with the Earth Kingdom calls for help when needed, and apparently the rebels – some secret society or something, he doesn't really remember, because his mother caught him eavesdropping and through him out before he could hear more – have taken over Ba Sing Se's Upper Ring, and that's a very bad thing.

He vaguely thinks that his Uncle called the colour cobalt, and that it isn't truly blue because it has greens and purples in it, like the sea. He had always liked the cobalt blue colour. He hasn't ever told anyone, but it is his favourite.

He chases, running faster than he ever has before, but no matter what, the Shadow is always juts out of reach. They are cutting through the Jasmine garden when he thinks of a plan, and veers from the path. Cutting through the west wing of the palace and using one of the secret passageways he is supposed to know nothing about, he manages to arrive at the Rose Gardens a split second before the Shadow.

He jumps, tackling the Shadow to the ground. Almost immediately, it responds, lashing out with arms and elbows and legs and feet and clawing at his face like a wild animal. Taken off guard, his head whacks into a nearby rock and he sees stars in front of his eyes as the world blurs. Something rips and he can feel cloth in his hand.

He looks up, finding the brightest, most beautiful coloured eyes he has ever seen, before the Shadow – the girl – vanishes with the wind, leaving him with nothing but a blue sash and the memory of cobalt eyes.

**xXx**

**__****(Scarred)**

He walks through the palace towards the training area. Azula is starting to learn how to bend lightning, something he probably won't start training in for another couple of years.

He frowns when he finally finds her practicing. The person who is training her isn't her usual instructor.

It is Ozai. Their father.

He immediately moves onto the sidelines of the area, quickly taking in the situation. Both his father and his sister are covered in sweat, chests heaving, faces flushed from their bending.

But that's not the thing that has concerned him the most.

Azula looks like she is about to burst into tears. That was how he knew that something was definitely wrong. Azula _never _cried. She never let anyone talk down to her, or let anyone make her feel like the lesser person.

But the Azula standing in front of him has a quivering lower lip. She rapidly blinks her eyes, trying to clear away her tears, and takes deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself.

"Your form was off again," Ozai said, eyes narrowing at his daughter. "I will demonstrate one more time."

Azula sniffs and gulps, watching as Ozai roughly moves through the form for producing lightning. He watches as well, never having seen it before, and he tries to commit it into his memory. Maybe if he practices in secret, he will be able to teach himself, and then he can show his father that he wasn't lucky to be born.

"Now do it. And do it _right_."

Azula nods quickly and moves through the form with twice the grace that their father has. Then she looks up at their father with wide, hopeful eyes—

—but he only curls a lip at her.

"I must question the sanity of your trainer, since he tells me that you're a prodigy. Do it _again_."

Azula bites her lip, but a few stray tears escape from her eyes and run down her cheeks. Ozai sighs in obvious disappointment and disapproval.

He didn't even realise he had spoken until he hears his own voice saying; "Leave her alone."

Ozai turns his cold gaze onto him and he panics. He is about to apologize for speaking out of turn when he suddenly finds himself not caring what his father thinks. He wants to be brave, like Lu Ten and like the Blue Spirit. And his mother told him to always protect his sister, and that includes protecting her from their own father.

He clears his throat, stood up straighter, and squares his shoulders.

"Leave her alone. Can't you see she's trying?" his voice was a little shakier then he would have liked, but he is proud that he has even managed to speak.

Ozai's eyes narrow into slits. "Your insolence is astounding for one so young. You should take your leave before you make a fool of yourself."

He feels his heart rapidly beating inside his chest, but he refuses to back down, standing his ground and setting his chin. "I just think that maybe you should take it easy on her," he said sharply, defending his sister. "From what I saw, her moves looked good."

Ozai outright laughs at his pronouncement, the sound not pleasant in the slightest. "And what would you know of lightning forms? Have you managed to bend lightning without my knowing?" He waves his hand casually at him, dismissively. "Leave us. Your sister and I will keep training until she gets it right."

He doesn't understand why, but that just makes him angrier.

"Are you pushing her so hard because her forms are better then what you could ever do?"

As soon as the words leave his mouth, he instantly wishes them back.

Ozai freezes and Azula's eyes widen in shock.

His father slowly turns around to face him, fury personified. "Are you challenging my abilities, boy?"

His knees feel weak, like they are about to crumble beneath him, but he manages to stay standing. "No, no, I—"

"Because it sounded like you think your eleven year old sister is a better firebender then I am."

He takes several steps back, shaking hishead rapidly. "I'm s-sorry, I didn't—"

"Perhaps, since you're such a good judge of firebending capabilities, you would be willing to showcase your own against mine? Agni Kai?" His father stalks towards him, a fireball between his hands.

He sinks down to his knees, crippled by his own fear.

He knew that then would be the time to scream for his mother, Uncle Iroh, or Lu Ten, but he can't seem to muster up his breath.

Ozai stops his advance, curling his lip and giving him such a disgusted look that he cringes away. He brought his hands together, snuffing out the fire. "No, I'm not going to Agni Kai with someone who can't even stand on his own two feet."

He almost sighs in relief, but he knows that wouldn't help him.

But then his father extends his hand and ignites a bright, blue flame about the size of an apple. "However, you have shown me great disrespect. This will teach you to watch your tongue around those who are above you."

Ozai lurches his fist forward, its blue light blinding.

The pain is white hot and suddenly he can't see.

But he hears the horrified and then enraged cries of his sister.

Then screams upon screams of pain that mix he vaguely recognises and remembers are his own.

Then he heard something that sounded like a girl yelling, but he remembered his sister running for help when Ozai had started talking about Agni Kai's, and it doesn't make sense.

It's that moment when he realizes that playing with fire is as dangerous as everyone always told him.

It's that moment when he realises that fire comes alongside oil and water, because oil feeds fire and the water brings the blaze back down so it doesn't consume; doesn't destroy. It's the moment when he realises the trinity he has taken for granted could easily destroy everything he has built his life around. The trinity is the fire, oil and water.

It's that moment he realises that if the water leaves, if it fades away and evaporates into mist and shadow, the fire and oil will spiral out of control, burning and burning and burning until there isn't anything to burn anymore.

It's that moment when he realises that he couldn't control the fire, despite being a fire bender, and the moment he realises his father would never love him.

Before he blacks out, he sees a cobalt blue so bright, endless and warm, that he thinks he has died and gone to the Spirit World.

**xXx**

**__****(Funeral)**

He is holding his girlfriend as she cries into his arms over the loss of her best friend, while across the grave yard, a Water Tribe girl cries into the arms of her grandmother as she buries her mother after losing her to cutthroats. He knows that it is cutthroats because his Uncle has told him that she is the daughter of the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe, and that her mother had been one of the kindest souls he had ever meet.

Over his girlfriend's head he sees a chocolate haired head as it cries into the arms of an older woman, and he is almost winded with the amount of pain she radiates, even from this distance. The grave she cries over was surrounded by other mourners, hundreds of them, and he feels sick to his stomach. How many of those people had actually known her mother? How many of those people were just trying to make connections to a powerful family in their time of need?

It had been the same when his mother had vanished, and when Lu Ten had died in battle.

He watches her whole body as it shudders and wracks from the sobs ripping out of her throat and chest.

He watches as her brown hair cascades down her back in waves, all the while holding onto his girlfriend tightly as she presses herself closer to him. Seeking comfort from the grief of her loss.

He watches until her friends and relatives obstruct his view, and as they pull away from the now freshly covered graves he tries to find her again, and for a brief moment he swears that he sees blue. Cobalt blue.

And then he swears to avenge her mother's death as the Blue Spirit identity he has cultivated and nourished for the past six months as he quietly helps the rebellion against his father.

**xXx**

**__****(Reflections)**

It's that moment when the reflection in the glass window of the jewellery store, etched and outlined in icy, silvery webs on the coldest, wettest morning in a hundred years catches the flickering light of the naked flame that burns above the footpath. The people walking right by, oblivious to everything but their own little worlds, wearing their coats and cloaks buttoned up to their chins, scarves wrapped around their mouths and their breath frosting in mid air

It is the moment when he is caught off guard and catches sight of his image in the crystalline surface of the gilded window. The way the light bounces of his high cheekbones, illuminating the pale and clear skin of his face. It was the aristocratic angles of his face, the molten gold of his eyes and the way they contrast against the uneven, angry, violent red around his scarred eye. He pulled the hood lower, feeling like a monster.

His hands clenched at his sides, curling into iron fists, and he can feel the fire in the torches and lanterns around him respond.

He would never have guessed that Ozai's little training accident would make him a more powerful bender than ever before.

The girl with the cobalt eyes who had healed him had never stepped forward, but she had saved his life. When the doctors arrived, prepped for something much worse – his scar was one of the worst they had ever seen, regardless – they had been very vocal in their disbelief at the state of his face.

His mother had been furious, but unable to do anything.

All he wanted was to thank the girl with cobalt eyes who had saved his life.

**xXx**

**__****(Ursa's Garden)**

The day he kills his father, the whole world celebrates.

But he can't find it in himself to do it. To cheer over the slowly burning corpse as it sits on the pyre in front of thousands and hundreds of people who used to adore and worship it.

His father had been a tyrant, he knows that, knows it better than most. His father had hurt people – hundreds and hundreds of people – as he tried to dominate the world because he wasn't happy with being King of a part of it. And he had killed people, innocent people, who had done nothing more than been related to a fugitive or an insurgent. But Ozai was still his father, and he just can't forget that. Yes, he had killed Ozai himself, and as himself – not as the Blue Spirit, the face of the resistance. He had fought the Fire Nation Civil War – and the World War – as both himself and the Blue Spirit.

He hears the sound of breaking twigs and looks up, wary but not afraid in the slightest. His defeat of his sister – a protégé, a talent like no other in a hundred years – is still making its rounds of the palace, twisting and melting with his defeat of Ozai the Tyrant.

No one came to his mother's old rose garden. It was a haunted place, sacred ground. His father had locked it up, out of sight and mind, barred it, and let it grow and die and grow again as the years went by. It was a wild place now, only hinting at the controlled elegance it had once had. The roses were everywhere, scattered amongst other weeds and flowers he didn't have names for.

"Who's there?"

A shadow moves to his left and he exhales tiredly, fluidly moving to his feet and using his extraordinary sense to listen and hunt. He hears the light breathing, and sees the edge of dress or cloak flutter behind a tree as his visitor crept in the shadows.

"I know you're there, sweetheart." He has met many people, talented spies and assassins, and he has learnt from the best. He knows the difference between a woman and man. Girls move more lightly, tread more delicately, more like a panther than a stalking lion. Jun – who had been his teacher and his lover, for a time, when he had needed someone and she had needed comfort because her True Love had died – had explained why girls moved differently, how you could tell the best male assassin from the best female just by listening.

"Look," he continues, when he doesn't receive a response. It is frustrating, because he just wants to rest and forget and move on. His coronation is at sunrise, and he wants to sleep properly, in his bed, for the first time in seven years.

(He thinks it's been seven years since he left with Uncle, banished after speaking out against his father's despicable plans. He thinks he is twenty-one, but he isn't sure. All the blood and death and destruction and pain and suffering all just blended together until it was one constant fog of red.)

"I'm giving you a chance. Surrender, or fight me. The choice is yours, but either way, you will submit to me and you will lose. Whether it be your honour, or dignity, whatever, or your life is up to you."

"Aren't you tired?" he hears form his left, and he changes the distribution of his weight to accommodate his stance. Then he pauses, and actually processes what she has said.

"What?" he demands, still in a ready position, body coiled and prepared for anything.

"Aren't you tired of fighting?" she says again, a little more to the right this time.

"What is it to you?"

"You just killed your father. You just sent your sister to rot in the worst place in the Four Nations. Don't you just want it all to stop?"

"I wanted the unnecessary to stop," he admits, speaking without thinking. Something about the voice just softens him, brings all his repressed feelings to the forefront, and if he isn't careful, they'll overwhelm him. Despite that, knowing that, he can't make it stop. "That's why I fought. To make it stop."

"I'm sorry."

He laughs bitterly, pulling himself together, ignoring the way his spine tingled and the way the voice flowed around him like cool water. "Why do you care? You don't know me."

"Because it isn't fair. You had to do it all alone. You had to make it stop on your own. You were alone." Finally, she steps forward, and it isn't what he suspected.

She wears plum coloured robes over normal maroon Fire Nation clothing – a halter top and harem pants. Her skin has been decorated in russet paint, the stripes along her bare arms and neck reminding him of a tiger. A thin gold bracelet wraps around her bicep. A large straw hat with a delicate veil sat on her head.

The Painted Lady.

The Water Tribe assassin.

One of his hands moves to the hilt of his duo blades, strapped across his back, and he starts to pull them out. They slither and hiss like angry snakes, while brilliant gold flame crackles in his other palm.

She raises her hands. "I mean you no harm, Fire Lord Zuko," she says, grasping the rim of her hat.

He waits; tense, as she removes it. Slowly, inch by inch, her long, wavy brown hair falls out, cascading around her shoulders. She shakes the rest free when she's fully removed her hat. It drops to the ground, the whisper of cloth brushing against the knee-high grass of his mother's garden.

She is legendary, like the Blue Spirit, and he wonders why she is letting him see her face. Finally, she looks up at him and he sees her face. The paint is on her face as well, a curved wave on each cheek and another stripe below each. A thick line of red connects her plump lips to her chin, and a yellow crescent moon is drawn on her brow. But it's her eyes that make his heart speed up, his hands tremble, his skin flush and creep.

The red paint is over her eyelids and the skin between eyebrow and eye. And her eyes…

… they were cobalt blue.

"It's you," he breathes, completely going against his training and dropping his stance. "The girl from the garden… the girl who healed me, saved my life." He pauses. "The girl from the graveyard."

She flushes bright red, her dark cheeks colouring seductively. "I'm Katara. Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, daughter of Chief Hakoda." She blushes again. " I didn't think you remembered me. I didn't think you knew that I had…"

"Healed me?"

She nods.

"Why would you think that?" he asks, sharply, despite being completely flabbergasted.

"I thought… you were in so much pain, I didn't think you were even aware that someone else was there."

"I saw your eyes," he answered immediately, then winced. "I mean…"

"My eyes?" she says hesitantly, but her voice…

He thinks he hears _hope_.

"They're beautiful," he answers honestly, without shame or embarrassment. "I've never seen eyes that colour. And trust me, I've been looking."

"Why?"

"You saved my life that day… Katara." He ignored the way saying her name – finally – makes him feel. Ignores the warmth that creeps along his skin, the adrenalin that pumps in his blood, and the sound of his heart as it roars and struggles against the cage he's firmly locked it inside of. "And when I saw you in the graveyard… you were broken, so broken and sad and hurt, but I've never seen someone stronger in my life. I admired you."

"Admired?" she parrots. "Funny. That's what I've always thought about you."

"I beg your pardon?" he asks, stunned.

She laughs, and the sound does strange things to his heart and head and body. "The first time I saw you, you were training with your cousin, Lu Ten. You were so determined to be good, be perfect. I wanted to be like you, have as much talent and strength and determination as you. I was mortified when you found me out… I had heard stories about Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation. You were always doing marvellous things, being brave and rebellious. Whenever your mother, Fire Lady Ursa, visited on a diplomatic mission, she would always come visit my mother, Kya, and I always demanded to hear her stories about. And then I saw you stand up for your sister against your father…" She trails off, biting her lips, tugging on a piece of hair that hangs over her shoulder nervously. He has never seen something so adorable, or endearing, in his entire life. "I admired _you_. When word of your rebellion reached my father, I all but commanded him to send you reinforcements. I'd never told anyone about what I had seen that day, but I knew he was a monster and that if you had finally gone against him… I knew that it would be for a very, very good reason. My father refused, of course. At that time your father hadn't declared all-out war, and he was still our ally. I attempted to run away. It failed epically." She laughed. "Then your father took over Omashu and everything changed. He still wouldn't let me fight, so I became the Painted Lady. I fought and killed and did everything I could to help you."

"Why?" He hadn't intended to say it like that. He sounds like he is whispering to a loved, confiding secrets and breathing words to her soul.

She notices, and flushes again. "I admired you. I… I loved you."

"You didn't know me."

"I still don't know you," she corrected, finally looking at him with her cobalt eyes. His heart stutters in his chest. "I fell in love with you. With an idea, the way little girl's falls in love with the stories they hear of Princes." She laughs, self-deprecatingly. "I _was _a little girl. I was barely five when I saw you the first time, recently nine when I healed you. It didn't matter though. I couldn't shake you. And here I am, eight years later, a _woman_, and I can't shake you."

She is breathing quickly, her fists clenched at her sides, and he can see how hard it is for her to admit her feelings. To him. He thinks that she hasn't told anyone her story – their story – before, and something inside him likes that. That she thought him hers, so much so that she refused to let anyone else know him.

"Now's the part where you scoff and politely send me on my way, my Lord," she says bitterly, twisting her hair harshly.

"Why would I do that?"

She looks up, startled. "Because I'm an idiotic girl who feel in love thoughtlessly?"

"Do you think your feelings thoughtless?"

"No, I –

"Then why should I?"

"Because," she says slowly, carefully, like she is trying to explain why a small child has to share his toy, "as you so eloquently put it: I don't know you."

"Do you?" he asks.

"Excuse me?" Her voice drips with something dark, and he loves it.

"Do you want to get to know me? Or are you scared that if you do, I won't reach whatever expectations you've created about me?"

"Why are you asking me these questions?"

"Because, maybe, I feel the same way."

Immediately, she changes. She is no longer the daughter of the Southern Water Tribe's Chief. She is the Painted Lady, feared and beloved in the same breath. She is mighty and powerful and skilled. "I don't like being played with."

"I don't like playing with people," he says, moving forwards. "My father played with people, played with me, my entire life. He manipulated and blackmailed and abused. He cheated and tricked his way through alliances, using fear as his tool. He wielded it for power, for control, to hurt and with the intention to harm." He stopped, so close he was practically touching her. "I am not my father, _Katara_."

Somehow it's a surprise, even though he realises abruptly that their current positions had hardly been leading in any other direction, but his soft sound of comprehension as his body gets with the programme only seems to intensify Katara's invasion of his mouth, and he's not complaining for a second.

Zuko eagerly leant in to kiss her hard, melding their mouths together as though they were always meant to be. Katara's hands crept around his head and gently threaded into his long, shaggy black hair, caressing and holding him still while her lips and mouth became more insistent. Zuko revels in the feeling of having Katara explore his mouth, like she is greedy for everything she discovers. He feels wanted.

She pulls away, breath coming in heated pants, and looks up at him. He melts under the cobalt eyes, and knows that there won't be another like her, and that he won't feel like this ever again. Then she smiles, and it's the most beautiful thing Zuko has ever seen in his life. "I think I believe it. Believe you."

He drowns in cobalt and has never been happier.

* * *

**A/N: **A series of moments, that culminate in a beautiful love story for the ages.

I was interested in the idea of loving, or idolising, a person or idea based on a sparring meetings and second-hand stories. It works a bit like how we all love Zuko, despite him being fictional. Katara and Zuko both experience this - for each other - despite having never meet or spoken properly. They have only seen snapshots, but it's enough.

Notes:

1. This is an A/U, where Sozin was brought to justice by Roku. Furthermore, the world is at peace at the beginning of the story. As it progresses, Ozai's greed and pride and lust for power are slowly leaking into the world, gradually poisoning it and draining the peace and happiness away. He wants to rule. Ozai's sees Sozin as weak, because he gave into the Avatar and didn't use Sozin's comet like he had planned. Ozai wants to rectify the situation, an dtake over the world, ruling as its leader, because he thinks that is his destiny and job.

2. Snapshot One/"Turtleduck Pond": Zuko is 7-ish, Katara is 3.  
Snapshot Two/"Training": Zuko is 9, Katara is 5  
Snapshot Three/"The Scar": Zuko is 13, Katar is 9  
Snapshot Four/"Funeral": Zuko is 14, Katara is 10  
Snapshot Five/"Reflection": Zuko is 18, Katara is 14 - _The Fire Nation Civil War has been going on for three years. Zuko started it when he publically turned away from his father and tried to over-throw him. This is around the time that Katara attempts to run away, so she can fight with Zuko and help him win his throne._  
Snapshot Six/"Ursa's Garden": Zuko is 21, Katara is 17.

3. In my head canon for this one shot, Aang brought peace to the world 100 years ago. He is alive, but old and struggles to fight. He DID join Hakoda's armed forces, which in turn fought to back up Zuko's rebel insurgents.

4. Zuko and Katara marry, under the guise of a new alliance between the Water Tribe and Fire Nation. Really, they just love each other, but can't come right out and say it, because they don't know each other all that well... Katara is 18, Zuko is 22.

Read & Review,

- EIS


	5. Day 5: Unrequited

**Unrequited, A Zutara Week 2014 Story  
****Author:** Eternity in Seconds  
**Rating:** T  
**Genre: Romance/Drama/Angst**  
**Words:** 2248  
**Pairings:** If you don't know, something may be wrong with you._  
_**Summary: **Their first kiss was filled with need and desperation, the press of his lips on hers demanding a response… Their first kiss would be their last.  
**Authors Note:** **Day 5: Unrequited**. This flowed out on to the page, before I had even written Day 1. And it was all thanks to a little song called _The Lonely_ by Christina Perri. The song takes my breath away, and now that I have this story written alongside it, it makes my heart ache. You NEED to listen to the song on repeat as you read **Unrequited**. Within it – especially towards the end – you will find thinly veiled parallels to the song and lines referencing lyrics because it _The Lonely_ is **Unrequited**.  
**Disclaimer:** Bryke (Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko) and Nickelodeon own _Avatar: The Last Airbender_, and all that relates to it. I may own the story herein this FanFiction and I may own some of the Original Characters, but the original idea belongs to them.

* * *

**Playlist:  
** _The Lonely_, Christina Perri

* * *

unrequited: (noun) not returned or reciprocated

not avenged or retaliated

not repaid or satisfied.

* * *

**Unrequited**

Katara always waited up for him, regardless of what his reasons for going out were. At first, she didn't even know that she was waiting up for him, and it took her a good few months to correlate her sleepless nights and random insistence on finishing up a book or something she could theoretically do the next morning or day or evening with the nights he wasn't in the Fire Nation palace.

That wasn't to say that she didn't worry about the others being on night patrol at night, but it was only logical that she would worry about him more than the others because the others did not hesitate to call for backup if things got out of hand.

He never did.

Also, she had spent days healing his chest after he had taken Azula's lightning for her during the battle of Sozin's Comet, and she didn't want all her hard work and energy and effort going to waste because he liked the thrill of the hunt and satisfaction of the justice.

Hence, it was only logical that – except, of course, if he was just out for his own reasons, responsibilities or entertainment– she would not be satisfied with hearing him enter the Phoenix Palace, or his tread on the hallway outside as he went to his bedroom – bed chambers, really, not bedroom, which were across and down the hall from her own – while on the nights he was on patrol, she wasn't satisfied by anything less than visual conformation.

Around about the time she had realised that her sleeplessness was in direct proportion to his night time outings, he seemed to realize it as well.

They never said anything about it. That just wasn't their way.

Plus, it wasn't like he wasn't usually awake when she came back from her own night time activities as the Painted Lady. More often than not, with a mug of her favourite tea waiting in his hand, kept at just the right steaming temperature by his fire bending prowess.

And, after she – and he – and realised that her sleeplessness was in direct proportion to his night time outings, he always made an effort of walking past her door, where before he would have juts quietly crept through his own window to get directly to his bed.

So, that night (early, early morning), when he entered the Palace and found Katara sitting on a lounge reading one of the scrolls on Fire Nation children's tales, he wasn't surprised.

She, however, felt her heart drop into her feet, even as she stood immediately, the scroll dropping onto the floor with a thud in her haste.

"What happened to you?" she demanded, something like fear in her voice. Her eyes were trying to take in every inch of his body, cataloguing each of his cuts, memorizing every place where his uniform was ripper or torn and even how he limped just slightly as he walked across the room towards her all at once.

His look told her everything she needed to know, which was, really, nothing. The details, she knew, didn't matter. She could ream him later for doing something stupid again, and doing it alone. She wiped the questions away and stored them in her mind for later, putting a hand on his back and preparing to use bloodbending to deduce the extent of his internal – if there were any – injuries. As soon as she touched him, however, he turned into her body, pressing against her and burying his head under her chin, his arms wrapping around her so tightly they took her breath away.

For a moment, she didn't know quite what to do and her arms stayed awkwardly spread away from her, her expression surprised until he tightened his grip even more and she felt the slight stubble at his chin against the side of her throat.

"I'll heal," he whispered hoarsely, his voice crackling like an open fire eating away at bone-dry twigs. "Just… juts hold me. Please."

Slowly, unsurely, she wrapped her arms around him, responding to the strength of his hold with strength of her own and she felt something strange when she did. Something strange, because it was the idea that she was allowing it to happen at all, at least at this moment of time. Something strange because it had been years since she had been a part of, or done something, like this, with him. It was strange to clutch someone, hold them close, press their warmth – and Spirits, was he warm – tight against her. She didn't have the experience of even the vocabulary to describe what that feeling might be, only that it felt right and comfortable, and like she suddenly wished that there was a way to hold him even tighter. "Zuko," she whispered helplessly, feeling the warmth of his soul wrap around her as securely as his arms wrapped around her body. "Zuko, what happened?" she asked rhetorically, not thinking he would answer her.

He only tried to burrow closer. "I almost lost tonight," he whispered, his voice still hoarse, as if he had been crying or screaming for a long time. And that thought alone caused all the worry and panic she had heard at his words increase tenfold, from a little trickle in a dam's walls over her head to the collapse of the walls themselves, the finally liberated water gushing and slamming over her head, pressing her down into darkness. "They almost won, stupid mindless hoods, but they almost overwhelmed me, and when they almost had me beaten, when I thought I wouldn't be coming home tonight, I had just one though…" he trailed off.

"That you should have called one of us?" she reproved gently. "That you should have called me?"

He pulled back sharply, but not far. He pulled back just enough to look up at her face, and he was so close… but still so out of reach it was heartbreaking. "No. You needed to be here. Away from them. Safe. I'm never going to call for your help."

The words should have burned, should have been shards of glass right through her skin and bone and through to her heart, but they weren't. But they were, because she didn't understand.

"Then what? What was your thought then?"

"That I couldn't lose you."

Katara's brow knit. "If you had called us, you wouldn't have –"

He interrupted her by shifting in her hold until he could reach her lips, stealing the breath from her argument.

Their first kiss was filled with need and desperation, the press of his lips on hers demanding a response, her response, but his deepening of the kiss was tender in a way she would have never imagined. When he finally broke the kiss, it was to tear his blue mask of entirely and what she saw in his eyes made it impossible to regain her breath.

"Now do you get it?" he demanded gruffly. "I almost lost you. In body, mind and spirit." His arms tightened around her and he brought his head down towards her again.

For a moment, she thought he might kiss her again and although she didn't have a clear thought in her head, she had absolutely no inkling of moving away and out of his arms. When she felt his forehead press against hers, the whispered of his long hair falling out of its half-ponytail and brushing softly against her cheek, she closed her eyes and inhaled his scent.

Fire. Summer rain. Spices.

"I fought so hard because I couldn't think about dying without having told you how much I…" he whispered, his breath ghosting her lips. "I nearly killed them, Katara," he admitted.

"But you didn't," she answered, her voice so low that if he had been mere inches further, he wouldn't have been able to hear her.

"If they hadn't of given up, I might have," he said bluntly, his voice still a whisper against her closed eyelids. "If it was between killing them or never seeing you again…"

Katara couldn't bring herself to listen to those words escape his throat. "Stop," she said, before she could think. She opened her eyes and pulled back, so that they were looking at each other again, but still embraced. "Don't," she commanded softly, her voice more pleading, begging then it had ever been before in her life.

He looked at her for a very long time, considering, almost fighting with himself. "No," he finally spoke, deciding on something she still couldn't comprehend properly. "I won't." He reached one hand to gently caress the strands of hair that were usually contained in her hair loopies and pressed them behind her ears, brushing the back of his gloved hand along her jaw as he did. "I almost died tonight, Katara –"

She shook her head and tried to look away, but his hand on her face wouldn't let her. "And I don't want to hear it. That. Ever again."

" – I almost died," he repated petutantly, his gentle tone of voice belaying the strength of his words. "And the only thing I could think of was you." He held her face in place, entrapping her with his molten gaze. "The only regret I had was never telling you how I felt."

She closed her eyes and leaned her cheek heavily into her palm, contradicting the words that flowed from her lips. "Don't."

"I know you can't love me back," Zuko said. "And I'm sorry that I kissed you before. I'll…" he swallowed back his original words and continued with, "promise to behave from now on. I swear, we can go back to pretending like I never said anything – tomorrow… tonight… when the sun rises," he said, his whole countenance torn. "But not now…" he caressed her cheek and it brought her eyes open again. She hadn't even realised they had closed. "Just…let me use the moonlight to convince myself that I didn't almost lose you." The again was left unspoken, but she knew. Azula's lightning still woke her in the middle of the night, her screams always caught at the tip of her tongue.

Her screams were always his name.

"You're hurt –

"I'll heal."

"You're bleeding."

"It will stop soon."

She met his eyes and exhaled. "I don't want you to be in anymore pain."

"Every day I live in pain, and that same pain will always be with me. You have to know."

Katara swallowed thickly and took one small step backwards. His hand didn't loosen or tighten; it just sat against her cheek, a warm weight of _what can be_.

She took another small step back, feeling his long, lean, dangerous fingers slid along her cheek, following the ridges of her cheekbones and jaw and nose.

She stepped back again, and again, waiting for the moment he would stop her, pull her tight. His fingers continued to slide across her face. The tips held her chin lightly, his thumb brushing along her lips.

It was a slow dance in an empty hallway, her heart a lullaby inside the cage of her ribs. Her body.

They stood in silence. Zuko observant, Katara desperate.

Almost like he knew, Zuko smiled bitterly. "Go back to Aang, Katara." And he let her go.

And she did go. She took the final step away, breaking their connection, severing their connection forever more, and softly slipped back through her quarter's doors, and into her bed, to her place besides Aang.

The Avatar. Her friend. Her fiancé.

She had never felt more empty. More lonely.

And the lonely held her tightly in its embrace, even as Aang sleepily rolled over and wrapped an arm around her waist and brought her close to his chest.

She wondered if he would see how broken she was in the morning. Wondered if there would be a difference to her. She hadn't even known her own story – hadn't even know that it was being written. With Zuko.

The Fire Lord. Her friend. Her lov–

No. She couldn't love him, because she _had_ to be in love with Aang. Her husband.

His love would just have to be unrequited.

* * *

**The Lonely****  
Christina Perri**

2am; where do I begin,  
Crying off my face again.  
The silent sound of loneliness  
Wants to follow me to bed.

I'm a ghost of a girl that I want to be most.  
I'm the shell of a girl that I used to know well.

Dancing slowly in an empty room,  
Can the lonely take the place of you?  
I sing myself a quiet lullaby.  
Let you go and let the lonely in  
To take my heart again.

Too afraid to go inside  
For the pain of one more loveless night.  
But the loneliness will stay with me  
And hold me til I fall asleep.

I'm a ghost of a girl that I want to be most.  
I'm the shell of a girl that I used to know well.

Dancing slowly in an empty room,  
Can the lonely take the place of you?  
I sing myself a quiet lullaby.  
Let you go and let the lonely in  
To take my heart again.

Broken pieces of  
A barely breathing story  
Where there once was love  
Now there's only me and the lonely.

Dancing slowly in an empty room  
Can the lonely take the place of you?  
I sing myself a quiet lullaby  
Let you go and let the lonely in  
To take my heart again.

* * *

**A/N: **Yes, I added the song lyrics because you readers needed to know them! I don't know how many people actually listen to the songs recommended as my "Playlists", and its okay if you don't. But, for Unrequited, it is absolutely necessary. It fluently and almost precisely expressed Katara's feelings during this story.

Originally, all these prompts were going to be from Zuko's POV (like all of the 2013 prompts were from Katara's) but that just didn't happen. This piece juts commanded to be written, so I wrote it the way it wanted to be.

Notes? Why, yes...

1. In my head canon for this one shot, Zuko (Blue Spirit), Katara (Painted Lady), Toph (Blind Bandit), even Sokka and Suki, all go out and play vigilante.

2. Zuko is 28. Katara is 26. She and Aang have only been married for about a year and a half.

3. Zuko isn't married yet.

4. I also like to think of this is as canon, because Katara and Aang will have their three children (Bumi, Kya and Tenzin) and Zuko will have his daughter (in my head, called Zeeri) which will in turn lead to the LoK characters (Iroh II, Jinora, Ikki, Rohan, Meelo etc etc)

5. Katara, in my head, has never admitted to loving Zuko. When she was about to, she shut herself down. It works, in Katara's mind, sort of like plausible deniability. Further more, Zuko's love for Katara - which he admits in his scene - is, therefore, unrequited because she does not "return" those feelings (she doesn't admit to him or to herself that she is, in fact, in love with him).

I hope that all makes sense!

Read & Review,

- EIS


	6. Day 6: Socks

**Socks A Zutara Week 2014 Story  
****Author:** Eternity in Seconds  
**Rating:** T  
**Words:** 4168  
**Pairings:** If you don't know, something may be wrong with you._  
_**Summary: **He's thinking about how nice it is to sit in silence, without feeling like he's suffocating; how relaxing it is to just be with her. A Modern A/U, in which bending is illegal and Zuko is a vigilante.  
**Authors Note: **  
**Disclaimer:** Bryke (Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko) and Nickelodeon own _Avatar: The Last Airbender_, and all that relates to it. I may own the story herein this FanFiction and I may own some of the Original Characters, but the original idea belongs to them.

* * *

**Playlist: **  
_Sedated_, Hozier  
_Tongue Tied_, Aqualung

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socks: (noun) a garment for the foot and lower part of the leg, typically knitted from wool, cotton, or nylon

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**Socks**

It's the socks.

Katara is reclining comfortably in the computer chair at the other end of the room, half turned to face her beloved computers. One screen is running some kind of program that he can't identify, but the other is playing what seemed to be a movie. He can't see what movie it is, but the words he can hear sound Victorian.

She hasn't heard his approach, all her attention focused on the movie and intermittently dipping a spoon into a small tub of ice cream. She seems perfectly at ease, secreted away in the corner of his (admittedly massive and industrial) office at the top of the Agni-Kai Enterprise's building; part of him wonders why she is here, alone, on a Friday night.

He will never admit it aloud, but he really does find Katara adorable. He tried not to, in the beginning, but she had worn him down: her honesty is both refreshing and annoying whenever she voices an opinion, her brightness both blinding and guiding whether he wants it or not. Most of all, though, her genuine heart and purity is a breath of fresh air when he has spent the majority of his life surrounded by the world's most arrogant and vicious business men and women.

As adorable as she is on a daily basis, there is something about her now that is not only adorable, but… he doesn't know what to call it. What he does know is that he's been standing in the shadows for at least the last five minutes, cataloguing the way her face lights up with real pleasure at whatever she is watching; he wants to smile at the way her feet, which are propped up on the desk and crossed at the ankles, are bobbing up and down.

The socks are, admittedly, what caught his attention and alerted him to her presence, but not as his E.A working overtime. Where she normally wears her fur-lined, wedged heeled ankle boots, she is now bare foot except for a pair of colourful socks, which are fluorescent blue and patterned with little whales.

Katara starts humming; swaying her head in time with her feet, and this is what finally draws him forwards. She is happy, and there is a dark part of him that wants nothing more than to share in that happiness, if even for just a moment.

He crosses the room silently, until he is standing just behind her and has a clear view of the computer screen.

"Is that BBC?"

Katara shouts, her ice cream and spoon catapulting through the air. In her haste she tried to simultaneously pull her legs in and push herself out of the chair, all of which ends in disaster. He springs forward to catch her, but her weight is unevenly distributed and the chair tips forwards and skitter back, depositing her on her back on the hard floor with an audible thud before he can.

She lies panting, gasping for breath quietly for a few moments, and when he leans over her he can tell that the wind has been knocked out of her and she isn't just terrified.\

"Katara?" he asks in concern.

She blinks rapidly and answers, still breathless, "Zuko?"

He reaches for her, her smaller hands grasping his forearms, and pulls her carefully to her feet. She is still holding on to him when she tries to hide a wince by ducking her head, but he is observant – he has to be, given his Other job – and they are standing too close together for subterfuge.

"Did you hit your head?" he queries, as gently and quietly as possible, trying to soften the scratchy quality of his voice.

She hums in absent assent and he reached up automatically to run a hand across the back of her head, and it's only then that he realizes that her hair is free of its usual hair loops and braid: she has it down and it falls now against his hand in gentle waves as he searches for a bump.

She is skittish beneath his fingers and probing touch, and tries to shy away. "Seriously, Zuko, I'm not going to bleed to death or need the hospital."

He ignores her and lowers his hands, done with his search.

"No bump." He pointedly ignores her snort. "I didn't mean to startle you," he says by way of apology.

"You didn't startle me, Zuko – you freaking gave me a heart attack. You took my breath away." Her head is bowed, so she doesn't see the way her words strike him, or the look he directs to the crown of her head. "Literally, took my breath away. And not in the nice, romantic, Mr Darcy way, but in the slightly stalkerish way that usually comes before a mugging. You need to work on that if you won't to keep up your billionaire play-boy philanthropist cover. Which I still think is ridiculous and totally clichéd, but it's not like you listen to me anyway."

He can feel the smile tugging at his lips as she sends him a, frankly, dirty look. She is the only one brave enough to chaste him this way, to speak her mind so bluntly. He would never admit this to anyone, but he loves it. It exhilarates him in away. And it's then that he realises that they are standing too close for comfort, because Katara is beautiful under normal circumstances, and these circumstances are anything but.

Zuko releases her and steps away, busying himself with retrieving the ice cream; he can't seem to find the spoon, however, and resolves to look for it later. He turns back to see Katara reseated, gingerly rubbing the back of her head.

She catches his concerned eyes and snorts again. "It's not like I can't fix this by myself, Zuko. Relax, for Spirits sakes."

"What are you doing here, Katara?" he asks, refusing to acknowledge her last statement.

He sets the tub of ice-cream down on the corner of the desk and then leans against it; Katara, her flushed cheeks gone, gives him a disapproving look at his obvious change of topic, and then casts her eyes back to her computer screen.

"It's stupid."

"Really? And sitting her – at your work place – on a Friday evening, watching Pride & Prejudice and eating ice cream isn't?"

She makes a sound that's half a laugh, half a sigh. "Point. But I'll have you know, I'm not the type of girl who does this often. It's a onetime thing. Usually I'm with actual people on Friday nights. And not watching Colin Firth in his wet t-shirt." Then he sees something dawn on her face and her wide, shining blue eyes swing to meet his golden ones. "How did you know it was Pride & Prejudice?"

He glances at the computer screen, ignoring her far too interested and bright eyes – he does a lot of that, he thinks absently, ignoring her – and reaches over to move the show back to where it had been before she had fallen over. "Because I've seen it."

"You've seen it? Do you like it? Or Jane Austen in general?" The excitement lights up her face, the pain from her fall apparently gone. "For some reason, I pictured you more of a Wuthering Heights kind of dude. Or maybe Jane Eyre." Then she narrows her eyes. "If you say that Wuthering Heights is better than Pride & Prejudice, I will stab you with one of your duo blades."

Zuko can't contain his laughter then, both at her excitement and the vehemence in her voice as she promises to stab him. Both are reactions purely and utterly _Katara_, and he enjoys watching how animated she becomes when discussing something she's obviously passionate about.

"What's wrong with Wuthering Heights?" At her face, he laughs again. "I don't like Wuthering Heights," he assures her, "so no need to stab me with my own swords. But it's been so long, if I had a favourite, I've forgotten what it was. But you didn't answer me: why are you here and not out?"

Katara glances away from him, runs a distracted hand through her hair, and forestalls answering. Her eyes have fallen back on her movie, and he's content to let her watch it for a bit before pressing on. She is odd, this little chocolate-skinned friend of his, and he find sit strangely endearing; she is wildly different from Mai (worst mistake of his life), and pretty much all of his other friends, and he's lately taken to wondering about all the things he doesn't know about her.

"Katara."

She bites her lip, pulling it between her even white front teeth. "I was scared."

This is not the answer he expected, and it sets off warning bells in his head. He pushed off the desk, automatically falling back on his Blue Spirit persona and feeling suddenly, extremely protective.

"Why? What happened, Katara?" He narrows his eyes and runs a hand through his long hair. "Did someone hurt you?"

She shakes her head, playing with the edge of her frayed dress. "Nothing happened to me. I promise. It's just… you know those gang murders that have been in the news recently?"

He nods, eyes still narrowed.

"My mother… she was killed by the group when I was little. My Dad, he was Chief of Police, and he'd arrested one of their bosses. They didn't like that. Not one bit. So they…"

"They killed her?" he finishes softly, feeling his stomach plummet.

"Yeah. And the murders have been in my neighbourhood. The last one was actually a woman from the apartment below mine."

"So you came here?"

"I feel safe here," she admits, shrugging indifferently. "Even when you sneak up and injure me."

"So you are hurt?"

"Why are you here?" she asks, using his trick to avoid the question. "I clear your schedule because Friday is date night. Or, pick up random women at socialite parties to maintain your Bruce Wayne-esq alter ago, night." She pauses, rolling her eyes. "I mean, seriously, could you have been any less original?"

"I don't pick up random girls, Katara."

She turns away and mutters, "Sure you don't buddy. All the tabloids and newspapers just made up those photos because it was a slow news day." She cheeks one of the many screens she has going – he thinks its the program that keeps track of all the photos taken of him as him, and of the Blue Spirit.

He lifts his one eyebrow. "You're cute when you're jealous, Kitten."

She spins around so suddenly he is afraid that she'll fall and hurt herself again. "_Excuse me?"_

"I needed a break," he says, easily and casually, like he hadn't just called her cute and referred to her as a kitten. He decided to never do it again, because it's just wrong. "I couldn't do it tonight." He pauses, thinks over his words, turning them over in his head, before shaking his head. "I didn't want to do it tonight."

And he has always seen her more of a wolf.

Katara reaches out to grab the one vacant rolling desk chair – the others are all covered in her files and strewn with parts of technology he doesn't have a name for – and motions for him to take a seat. "So take a break. I won't bother you."

Zuko lowers himself into the offered chair, a small part of him surprised to see that she had already turned her full attention back to Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. She isn't joking about not bothering him either; her silence is not a loaded one, or even hesitant or nervous. It's juts silence, with nothing else. It's comfortable and relaxed. For all her usual chattiness and opinions, she seems perfectly content to sit in silence – with or without his presence.

He eyes the screen, where Elizabeth is meeting Darcy after his dip in the pond, but his mind isn't on the words: he's thinking about how nice it is to sit in silence, without feeling like he's suffocating; how relaxing it is to just be with her. Katara, who expects nothing from him. She is one of the few people in his life who does not press or pressure him to do or change or say anything.

Well, that's not entirely true. She does press him, although he's not sure she's always aware of it. She presses him to be a better person, a better friend; she presses him to keep his word, to seek out a better way of doing what he does, to be accountable for his actions without being ridiculous. Her brother does it as well, and so do Toph, and Aang. Together, alongside Toph, the Blind Bandit, they are perhaps two of his truest and most severe friends. They both help him in both aspects, both halves of his life; help him both as Zuko Agni – Forbes Most Eligible Billionaire Bachelor, Sexiest Man Alive, Number 1 Eligible Bachelor Under 30, Cleo Bachelor of the Year five years running, new Wolf of Wall Street, etc etc – and the Blue Spirit – World's Most Wanted, vigilante extraordinaire.

This leads his thoughts back to the problem of what has brought Katara here tonight. There is a sweetness and gentility to Katara that he values greatly, because it reminds him daily of what he's fighting to preserve; he doesn't like the idea of her being frightened out of her own home – or that she feels foolish for being afraid when she has every right to be.

Bending is illegal. Benders like her – like him – are constantly at risk. They are persona non grata. The enemy. Not to be trusted, arrested if seen, locked away and never to be seen again. It's part of the reason he became the Blue Spirit – to protect people like Katara, benders who just wanted to go about their lives and live without fear of oppression or violence. He became the Blue Spirit to fix the world, to stop the people – like his father – who wanted a world Hitler would have been envious off.

Ozai Agni has been stylised as the Modern Hitler because of his actions. When he was finally put down, defeated, Agni-Kai Enterprises had nearly lost everything. He had nearly lost everything his mother and Uncle had worked so tirelessly to nurture.

He is constantly being watched because of who is father is, and the whole world knows that he is a fire bender. It has cost him deals, relationships, freedom. Without Katara, and Toph, the Blue Spirit would have bene caught a long time ago. Katara still likes to point out how much she has helped, how many times she has saved him by deleting a photo, or providing an alibi. He has no idea how he survived as long as he did without her.

If something were to happen to her, he isn't sure what he will do.

He purposefully avoids wondering why that is, despite already knowing. He just can't accept it, because that puts Katara on a pedestal that would kill her if it were to be discovered.

"I could help, you know," she says suddenly, when the credits are rolling after the conclusion of the second-to-last episode.

"You do help me."

"No," she says, exasperation evident in her voice, "that isn't what I mean. You know it isn't what I mean."

He can't hear this, can't think it. He stands up, the chair skittering backwards with such speed and force that it shakes the windows when it hits the wall. "This is not up for discussion, Katara."

He shakes his head, angling his body towards his glass-box of an office. The full moon's smoky light filters in through the floor-to-ceiling windows that line the west side of his office, and he sees a strange lump lying in front of his desk. He starts towards it when he feels his body freeze.

"It is up for discussion!" she snaps, her hand in front of her.

He feels his eyes narrow. "I thought you didn't like blood-bending. Not after Hama."

"Don't you dare tell me what I like or feel, Zuko!" she yells, her hands twisting a little more. He feels his body twist to accommodate the action.

"You think his proves your worth, Katara?" he asks, keeping his voice controlled.

He sees it in her eyes that she does.

He loses his temper. "All it proves is that you throw a temper tantrum better than a two year old does. All it proves is that you can manipulate ultimate power once every month. All it proves is that you can't control your emotions, which makes you a liability in the field. All it proves is that when there isn't a moon, you are as good as dead. All it proves is that –"

"I'm not worthless!" she screams at him, jerking her hands.

He doesn't mean to show his pain, but the way she contorts his body splits the fresh stitches on his side – a gift from a hooked sword, curtesy of a man he once thought a brother – and he groans, feeling the trickle of blood as it rushes, euphoric and high off her control.

She hears and immediately her whole countenance changes. Her lips fall open in fear, her eyes cloud with shame and worry, and her face transforms in one heartbeat. She is immediately at his side, unbuttoning his white shirt, pressing her cool, glowing fingers against his heated, pale skin. His head swims – maybe he hadn't recovered as well as he had thought – but he still hears her frantic murmuring.

"I'm sorry. You'll be fine. Nothing is wrong, nothing to worry about. I can heal you, I'm healing you, you'll be as right as rain in a couple of minutes. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry, I'm so stupid, Zuko, I'm –

"Katara," he says, moving his hand to grab her chin and force her eyes away from his scarred and bruised chest to his scarred and pale face. He is just an abstract piece of art, one scar after the other. She has healed one of them – when she heals, he doesn't have scars – and it is the one that means the most to him (even more than the one is father left across his face). It is the large star, over his sternum, from the night he told her who he is after his sister tried to kill him. She had wanted vengeance for their father.

It was also the night he admitted to needing Katara more than anyone else or anything else in the world.

"I'm…"

"I know what the full moon does to your emotions," he says, dismissing her attempt at apology. "You don't need to apologise."

She nibbles on her lip and he became suddenly hyperaware of every inch of her that touches him. Which is far more than he is comfortable with, because in her haste to heal him, she ended up straddling his legs.

Her fingers trail along his shoulder where a brilliant bruise is colouring. His breath catches when she brushes against it, and it isn't because of pain. "What happened?"

"Jet."

Her eyes are suddenly fierce, and he remembers that they used to date before he betrayed her. She opens her mouth and he shushes her immediately.

"He is still anti-bending. Still after me." Her eyes practically burn with blue fire were they are usually as cool as the Mediterranean Sea. "Still an _idiot_," he adds quickly. "He got lucky tonight."

"If I had been there, I could have helped. Like I did with Azula."

He tenses, every feeling about That Day coming back like a tidal wave and crashing into him. He had taken lightning for her. For her. Because, seeing the blue crackling and shooting towards her like that, he had never been more frightened in his life. She had almost died.

"No." His voice is sharp, and short, and bitter, and severe, and he sees her flinch away. "Never again."

"I'm better now," she defends, lowering her hands to her lap – which places them in direct proximity to his lap. "You said so yourself. You've been training me yourself."

"Training you to protect yourself. Not to put yourself in deliberate danger."

"I can do it. I can fight."

"No, Katara," he says bluntly, without infliction or emotion. He catches her wrist in his hand before she can do the thing where she pinches her fingers and creates a pinch of pain that burns, stings like a wasp bite.

"Why not?" she demands passionately, not bothering to even fight against the hold he has on her wrist. "Why won't you let me help you? Toph helps and she's younger than me. For Spirits sake, Zuko, why can't I help you?" She looks at him, and he stops breathing. "Don't you trust me?"

"I trust you more than anyone else in the world. More than I have trusted anyone in my life."

"Then why?" she breathes, sounding distraught and broken as she stares out over the city.

"Because I can't… I can't lose you." She looks at him then, confusion evident across her pretty face. He laughs without humour. "Don't you get it, Katara? _I can't lose you_."

"You won't," she says empathetically.

"I can't lose you. I can't even…"

He sees the moment when she finally figures it all out. It's in the way her hands still, frozen in mid-air, caught somewhere between inaction and action; it's in the way her breath catches in her throat, the way her chest stops its steady rise and fall; it's in the way he feels her pulse stutter, then speed up again as he holds her slim wrist captive in his big hand; it's in the way her eyes pin him down, searching his face – his eyes – for the conformation of her discovery and his words.

"How long?" is all she asks.

"Since Azula," is all he replies.

He is aware of every inch of her body as she sits on his lap like a Queen. Her head tilts to one side, hair falling across her face. He reaches out and brushes it behind her ear, tenderly, carefully, reverently, because he doesn't have to hide anymore. The back of his hand brushes against her cheek.

Then she leans forwards and kisses him.

Overwhelmed, Zuko lets his eyelids fall shut and presses closer, determined that he won't just be kissed; he doesn't do passivity and he's not about to start now, on the floor of his big CEO office, with Katara. It's a surprisingly gentle brush of lips but the slow, sweet ache spreading out from the base of his spine is enough to draw a soft groan from him that he hopes Katara doesn't hear.

Katara's tongue collides hotly with his and there's a low groan that could have come from either one of them. She tastes sweet and bitter, like raspberries and strawberries and cream; firm, moist and addictive where they fit together.

Zuko tangles his fingers in Katara's hair and deepens the kiss but it's nowhere near enough. As the kiss turns messy and breathless, Katara's trapped hand curls around his forearm, blunt nails digging into the tender flesh, painful and exhilarating.

Wanting to touch everywhere at once, Zuko settles for dragging one hand up Katara's back under her blouse and fisting the other into soft brown hair; alternating between kissing back with everything he has and submitting to the agonising slide of warm lips against his as Katara's tongue in his mouth traces an ache that carves mercilessly down his spine.

The shift of hips against his sends a spiral of relief and need through him so intense that it's all he can do not to flip her over and jus submit. One hand releases the edge of the desk – when had he sat up? – and tangles in her hair, almost hard enough to hurt, but she doesn't seem to care in the slightest, pulling him closer and gasping against his lips.

He stops them there, because if he doesn't, he won't be able to. She whines against his mouth as he shifts away, but releases him. Their chests heave, and he squeezes her thigh where he grasps her leg.

"Why now?" she pants, getting more comfortable on his lap as he leans back against the glass wall and holds her. She snuggles down, curling one hand into his open shirt. "Not that I'm complaining, but…"

He chuckles. "I liked your socks," he says finally, and in response she lifts a leg – Katara is more flexible then he gave her credit for, and that thought needs to stop right there – and wiggles her toes. She laughs properly, happily, and he settles his arms around her waist. "I couldn't pretend otherwise anymore."

They sit in silence, the moon the only light. He thinks she has fallen asleep when he hears, "Me neither."

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**A/N: **Inspired by superheroes. I've had this idea for a long time. A modern world, like ours, where bending is illegal, and where Zuko fights as the Blue Spirit in protection of the innocence and in protection of the benders. Toph is another vigilante, and one of Zuko's oldest and closest friends. Katara is, of course, the love interest. Sometimes she is a crime fighting badass called the Painted Lady.

Other times, she is Zuko's Executive Assistant by day and crime fighting helper by night. She is also hiding her bending, and is caught in the middle of a war like none other. This leads her to become Zuko's partner, the Painted Lady, and her vendetta against the Southern Raiders comes full circle when it is revealed that they work for Zuko's arch-nemesis, and father, Ozai, and his crazed sister, Azula. In the end, Zuko sacrifices himself for Katara, she defeats his sister, heals him, and they get married and retire (for a while...)

Notes? Why, yes...

1. In my head canon for this one shot, Zuko (Blue Spirit), Katara (Painted Lady), Toph (Blind Bandit), even Sokka and Suki, all go out and play vigilante - or help someone else play vigilante.

2. Zuko is 28. Katara is 22.

3. Jet leads something resembling a crime-family, called the Freedom Fighters. He and Zuko were a team for a long time before Jet discovered Zuko's identity as a bender and tried to kill him. Jet's parents, and his girlfriend, were killed by Fire benders, and he has a special hatred of them.

4. Aang is a politician trying to get equal rights for everyone. He is in love with Katara, but she turns him down every chance she gets, because she is nursing feelings for her boss, Zuko.

Read & Review,

- EIS


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